Animal News

Elephant that was in film Water For Elephants dies suddenly at Texas facility

If a facility allows direct contact with animals, then it's not a good facility.

The Preserve

An elephant that was used in the making of a high-profile Hollywood film died at an animal facility in Texas — one that's been accused for decades of mistreating its animals.

Tai was a 55-year-old female Asian elephant who became most famous after being used in the 2011 film Water For Elephants.

She was residing at The Elephant Preserve in the Texas Hill Country, which on May 7 sent out an email to its subscribers saying she died "after a brief illness." On the phone, a spokesperson from The Preserve said she died of kidney failure.

Tai is the second elephant to have died at The Preserve in the past year: Dixie, another 55-year-old, died approximately three months ago, also reportedly due to kidney failure.

Tai and Dixie were two of five Asian elephants — along with Kitty, Rosie, and Becky — all captured from the wild, residing at The Preserve, an animal facility operated by a business called Have Trunk Will Travel aka HTWT.

HTWT owners Gary and Kari Johnson were previously located in California, but moved their facility and animals to Texas in 2018, after the Golden State banned the use of bullhooks — metal rods with painful sharp hooks used to train elephants. (Austin has also banned the use of bullhooks.)

HTWT staffers use bullhooks, and has been the target of campaigns by animal groups such as Animal Defenders International, a California group that conducted an 8-week undercover investigation showing trainers, including Kari Johnson, beating and striking elephants with a bullhook, as well as hooking a baby elephant inside the roof of its mouth and using stun guns to shock the elephants.

Escape to Texas
When the Johnsons relocated to Texas, they changed the name to "The Preserve," and claim to be promoting elephant education, knowledge, and conservation.

They charge $125 per person for the opportunity to bathe elephants and snap selfies while the elephants are forced to stand on their hind legs and other unnatural positions, as seen in this video from 2011.

Melinda Pharr, an Austin resident who founded an advocacy and fund-raising group called Elephants Austin, has visited The Preserve a number of times to observe their practices, which are not in line with what true sanctuaries follow.

"They cloak what they're doing in conservation and talk about elephants being endangered, but they engage in practices that are not natural to an elephant's behavior, like painting canvases, standing on their heads, and swaying with a hula hoop," she says. "I saw one of the elephants ordered to pick up a trainer with their trunk. It's little more than a circus side show, and the trainers all have bullhooks in their hands."

Prior to Tai's death, Dixie's condition and sudden disappearance in early 2021 was of sufficient concern to national animal organization PETA that they sent a letter of inquiry regarding her whereabouts. They noted that, in video footage recorded prior to her disappearance, Dixie appeared to be emaciated and lame.

"While you’ve made no announcement, many fear that she may be dead, particularly given her emaciated condition in recent months," their letter said. Dixie has been removed from The Preserve's website.

No oversight
Although The Preserve is featured on the city of Fredericksburg's website (under the Attractions tab), it is actually outside city limits, says city manager Kent Myers.

"We don't inspect the facility or have any direct relationship," Myers says.

The Preserve's only oversight comes from Gillespie County Sheriff Buddy Mills, who has made visits to the facility in response to complaints. Mills did not respond to a request for comment

A statement from the Chamber of Commerce said that "since the elephants have arrived in Gillespie County we have been in communication with the owners of The Preserve, as well as their local veterinarian who has provided regular care to the animals and attests that the animals are well cared for."

What is a sanctuary
There are a few telltale signs you can look for to determine if a facility with animals is a true sanctuary that is not exploiting animals or involved in cruel, inhumane treatment:

No human interaction. True sanctuaries do not allow interaction or access between visitors and wild animals. No rides, no selfies, no petting, no bathing, no nothing. If the facility shows photos on its website of any proximity between humans and animals, that's a big no.
No performances or shows. If wild animals are forced to do any kind of routine, it's safe to assume that cruelty was used to persuade them to do so. Even seemingly innocuous activities such as bathing or petting require coercion. Wild animals don't want to be around humans.
No small cages. The animals have freedom to move at will, in a natural setting, and with other animals of their own kind. But they need to be kept separate behind barriers from people, since people can easily get hurt.

Sanctuaries also do not breed animals, as they do at zoos.

One thing to look for is an accreditation by the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries (GFAS), which provides certification that animal sanctuaries are following the rules; the Preserve has no GFAS accreditation.

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Winter weather warning

Forecasters warn of 'potentially catastrophic' winter storm in Texas

Photo by Uliana Sova on Unsplash

This weekend could bring ice to Dallas-Fort Worth and beyond.

With many Americans still recovering from multiple blasts of snow and unrelenting freezing temperatures in the nation’s northern tier, a new storm is set to emerge this weekend that could coat roads, trees and power lines with devastating ice across a wide expanse of the South, including Texas.

The storm arriving late this week and into the weekend is shaping up to be a “widespread potentially catastrophic event from Texas to the Carolinas,” said Ryan Maue, a former chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“I don’t know how people are going to deal with it,” he said.

Forecasters on Tuesday, January 20 warned that the ice could weigh down trees and power lines, triggering widespread outages.

“If you get a half of an inch of ice — or heaven forbid an inch of ice — that could be catastrophic,” said Keith Avery, CEO of the Newberry Electric Cooperative in South Carolina.

The National Weather Service warned of "great swaths of heavy snow, sleet, and treacherous freezing rain” starting Friday in much of the nation’s midsection and then shifting toward the East Coast through Sunday.

Temperatures will be slow to warm in many areas, meaning ice that forms on roads and sidewalks might stick around, forecasters say.

The exact timing of the approaching storm — and where it is headed — remained uncertain on Tuesday. Forecasters say it can be challenging to predict precisely which areas could see rain and which ones could be punished with ice.

Meteorologists at WFAA say it's too early for an exact forecast across Dallas-Fort Worth. But it's good to start being weather aware.

Here’s what to know:

Cold air clashing with rain to fuel a 'major winter storm’
An extremely cold arctic air mass is set to dive south from Canada, setting up a clash with the cold temperatures and rain that will be streaming eastward across the southern U.S.

“This is extreme, even for this being the peak of winter,” National Weather Service meteorologist Bryan Jackson said of the cold temperatures.

When the cold air meets the rain, the likely result will be “a major winter storm with very impactful weather, with all the moisture coming up from the Gulf and encountering all this particularly cold air that’s spilling in,” Jackson said.

Texas could be a harbinger for other parts of the South
Some of the storm’s earliest impacts could be in Texas on Friday, as the arctic air mass slides south through much of the state, National Weather Service forecaster Sam Shamburger said in a briefing on the storm.

“At the same time, we’re expecting rain to move into much of the state,” Shamburger said.

Low temperatures could fall into the 20s or even the teens in parts of Texas by Saturday, with the potential for a wintery mix of weather in the northern part of the state.

Forecasters cautioned that significant uncertainty remains, particularly over how much ice or snow could fall across north and central Texas.

“It’s going to be a very difficult forecast,” Shamburger said.

An atmospheric river could set up across the Southern U.S.
An atmospheric river of moisture could be in place by the weekend, pulling precipitation across Texas and other states along the Gulf Coast and continuing across Georgia and the Carolinas, forecasters said.

“Global models are painting a concerning picture of what this weekend could look like, with an increasingly strong signal for ice storm potential across North Georgia and portions of central Georgia,” according to the National Weather Service's Atlanta office.

Highway and air travel could be tangled by the storm
Travel is a major concern, as Southern states have less equipment to remove snow and ice from roads, and extremely cold temperatures expected after the storm could prevent ice from melting for several days.

The storm is also expected to impact many of the nation’s major hub airports, including those in Dallas-Fort Worth; Atlanta; Memphis, Tennessee; and Charlotte, North Carolina.

Polar air from Canada to keep northern states in a deep freeze
Unusually cold temperatures are already in place across much of the northern tier of the U.S., but the blast of arctic air expected later this week is “will be the coldest yet,” Jackson said.

“There’s a large sprawling vortex of low pressure centered over Hudson Bay,” Jackson said of the sea in northern Canada that’s connected to the Arctic Ocean. “And this is dominating the weather over all of North America.”

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